Wrong
by son-of-puji
Summary: He's always been wrong. Even when he thought he was wrong. There's no fairy tale on the wrong side of the tracks.


He's always been wrong. Even when he thought he was wrong. There's no fairy tale on the wrong side of the tracks. Here is a biography in a nutshell.

**Disclaimer:** Obviously, I don't own anything.

**A/N:** Lyrics: _Wrong_ by Depeche mode.

This might not be my best of all fics, I got a bit tired of it halfway through the fic, but I still think the idea of using this song is terrific.

* * *

**Wrong**

_I was born with the wrong sign  
In the wrong house  
With the wrong ascendancy  
_

Some say the beginning tells a lot about what's coming. In my case the statement is awfully right.

I was born at the thin borderline that divides Fall and winter, on a day of the recurrent agony of nature as a by-product of its slow dying. One of the few things I remember from the part of my childhood I actually spent with my parents was my mother telling me I had been brought there by rabid wolves because it was the worst of cold they'd ever experienced. I hadn't understood what rabid meant but later – irony of life, that is - I did everything to live up to it. It wasn't by chance she used this word; I was part of their pitiful horde, not only without any promising future but with no present at all. When she was angry or simply drunk, she would yell and state even the Hell froze over when I was born, no wonder I was such a bad news. Actually, I don't think I really was that time. I was thin and short for my age, clumsy in those oversized or outgrown secondhand clothes, and harassed and abused all the time. I was mostly silent - you never know, though, when a shaken can of soda might explode. And it did explode later.

I guess in my case bad news simply meant I _existed_. I got as little love and care as possible but at least the situation I had to face later so many times wasn't unfamiliar.

I know my no-good father got the sack on the exact day of my birth for showing up at work full drunk. I don't know whether he had gotten drunk out of joy or annoyance but I'd vote for the latter. I think up to that point he'd hoped I would somehow _not_ be born alive - it was the first on a long list of disappointment I caused. I was considered nothing but the flesh and blood result and reminder of their bad decision. Ever since then he went downhill. They both did, not that I have any illusion of them having been all that well-off and noble before. Sure as hell they hadn't been able to keep a job for more than two months but it didn't stop them from accusing me instead of themselves. I can say I was blamed for all their failures in life and maybe for others' failures too.

Other than the infinite yelling, constant hunger and smell of spilled or burped alcohol I have vague memories of my faint imitation of home. I remember seeing cops showing up at our door far too often, - something that didn't quite change with time even when I was grown -, so we were moving around a lot, from one hellhole to another, dark, small and dirty places all of them, and surely illegally occupied by us. Although we lived under the same roof, I rarely met my parents. I know the likes of them though, even if I never really got a full picture of their -our- lives: I have met far too many people of the same kind all around the places I've been to. They grow from the filth of the streets, a rootless lot with no purpose in life, with an innate inability to achieve or create anything worthy, blown by the wind here and there. Sometimes they settle down to pretend they can live like normal people, but it's always short-lived for they are nothing but creatures of instincts, acting on impulse without consideration: my own existence proves it the best way. I have a guess where my folks always were hanging around. In hindsight, leaving me alone was actually the best thing that could happen to me, considering those times they weren't. The constant fear from disappointing them and the lingering feeling of being needless made me adaptable and abnormally clingy and affectionate which made them even more annoyed; it was nothing if not a vicious circle. How fortunate that kids still can't make difference between acceptable and lousy circumstances of life due to lack of any benchmark…

The role model for family life I always had in my mind was as twisted as it can get.

_I took the wrong road  
That led to the wrong tendencies  
_

I was too young to see it coming. It had been in the wind for years, and it's a mystery why they'd waited so long.

It happened on an ordinary day, which still keeps popping up in my nightmares once in a while. I remember the pharmacy, the skirts and shoes rushing away in the street, and my mother telling me to wait there for her and then leaving me there with my dilapidated belongings stuffed in a duffel bag so easily as you leave the yesterday newspaper behind on a bench. Without remorse, without taking a look back. And since I was an obedient child, I was doing as told. And I was doing so all day. And then all night. And all along till many interrogating questions from the passers-by and countless curious stares later policemen and social workers finally came and took me - neither of them for this only time. I was kicking and screaming because I thought my parents might come back for me and if couldn't find me, there'd be a punishment. I attempted to escape but it was more of a prison than an orphanage, iron bars and locked dormitory doors.

For quite a long time I was thinking I'd had to do something bad, and this was the punishment my parents gave me. I was raised vaguely consistently. Normally I got punished when I'd done something wrong, but since I'd always tried to be good and quiet, and almost transparent, my parents punished me for no purpose, so it was difficult to draw any sensible conclusion. I didn't understand that everything happened the way it had been written, so I kept demanding the caretakers to take me back where I can be found, and I was desperately scared that my parents would forget me with time. I didn't clearly see I had been forgotten already at the very moment of my birth.

Then a couple came, and chose me. They took me in a neat house, with neat garden to live a neat life with them but for days and weeks I was only crying for my mum, for Northbrook, for the pharmacy. Why I wanted something as bad as my original life is beyond me. It's almost sad I'd felt so secure in such insecurity.

I can't blame the couple for giving up on me and getting fed up with all the pointless hissy-fit. That time I was young to understand what a chance I missed, and of course, it never returned. When some time later I was shipped back to the orphanage, old Bakers looked me over and laughed: "_I know your loser kind. You will always let the good things out of your hand because can't recognize their preciousness_." I remember his statement clearly because he repeated it every time I was carted back to the orphanage from whatever crappy place I'd been to, because he never doubted the orphanage under his care was somewhere beyond Hell. I never cared to tell him I'd been to worse places not once.

Too bad that later it turned out he was right with his statement.

I wasn't able to come to terms with my new place among disposable children and duffel bag heritage for very long months, thinking I ended up there by a fatal mistake, until one of those who'd been in the orphanage for years told me he'd been dragged in from in front of a grocery store. I asked what if his parents wanted to go back for him, and the answer was a bitter laugh. The same bitter laugh I cracked later when I was asked the same question by newcomers; later, when I understood we, except for a few who'd lost their family in an accident, were all unwanted.

And this realization sent me on a spiraling course down to the depths far under civilization.

_I was in the wrong place at the wrong time  
For the wrong reason and the wrong rhyme  
On the wrong day of the wrong week  
I used the wrong method with the wrong technique  
_

I wasn't a popular one among the kids on the outskirts of the society. Actually I screwed it up in the very beginning with all the moping and whining. After all, the orphanage was the nature in small scale, the only ruling tendency was the natural selection: I appeared weak, so I became the punching bag. It wasn't an overly layered society, groups of bootlickers gathered around their godfathers ruling losers, fat boys and those with glasses. This was the land of wolves, cruel and tough, everyone being vigilant and watching for others' mistakes. One bad step and you are torn to shreds. There was too little booty for too many. I tried to maneuver somewhere between the two sides, or mostly on the very border and beyond – the same old instinct to appear transparent, but here it never worked well, wasn't possible to maintain it for a long time. Anyhow, I could achieve an outsider position even among outsiders – it's nothing you can be proud of; I don't know if anything even existed beyond that.

Other than the infinite clash of groups and interests, the orphanage was almost boring. Usual cliques hiding in their usual corners doing their usual games against rules. And I stayed away from everyone, loafing along the fence and peeking between the metal bars, waiting and waiting, still wishing to be somewhere else, in front of a pharmacy but no one came for me. Shut away from the world I was watching people walk by without a glance as if we did not exist. Or as if we were a blot on their conscience.

The only times we united were against Bakers. The fierce fight with him was unequal, though; it was always followed by a punishment we could not match with any roughhousing. He was almighty with the decision about our free time and measure of food portion in his hands. Sometimes he, officially as a favor for his friends but in reality surely for money, sent us to do different works, lawn mowing, walking the dogs, painting the fence, and if we could somehow screw up even these things, we earned more ass kicking than normally. It was his most favorite habit anyways: he sometimes smacked us hard with whatever he had at hand. He was careful not to hit us on the head, though, only where the result was covered by clothes.

It was a refreshing experience when I got enrolled in Northbrook Grade and High School on account of being out of orphanage and adopted by some filthy no-good thugs that time. Though I was sent back to the institute after a few weeks, they let me frequent school instead of studying at the orphanage. The more time I could spend far from there, the better it was for me.

One day when I was on my way back from school, I bumped into a two-against-two fight over lunchboxes and pocket money. Two younger boys were cornered and threatened by kids I vaguely knew. One of them was Pete, an other orphan, the type of ass-kisser who would later turn against the master without a second thought. He was more of a henchman with sneaky eyes and rotten behavior, aggressive to the core. Teamed up with him was a boy called Griff, whom I was in the same Math class with. I knew he was living with his parents, a mother working three shifts in a lingerie factory, and a womanizing, alcoholic father who sometimes beat the crap out of her, and it made me wonder why Griff chose someone like Pete as a pal, who could be just as violent as his own father. It was either karma or something unintentional he had imbibed from infancy.

I could have chosen to do so many things then: turning my back on them and walking away, or defending the lunchbox like some goddamn Robin Hood. I did neither. I think being an outsider finally wore me out. Or maybe being continuously kicked down by others whipped up my self-esteem. I sided with Pete and Griff, snatched whatever we could from the two boys and ran away. It was ridiculous how my first crime was over two ham-and-cheese sandwiches and a few bucks. I was so frightened that I would be pinched and lose the money that I stormed into a pizza place and bought a family size pizza using up all the money, so I wouldn't go into custody with empty stomach. I never got caught for this, though maybe I should have.

From then on, when we realized how easy we could get food for free, and then later money without work, we started our family business of stealing. Pete had his connections, and he became our unofficial leader; he would pick the next victim and manage the business. We weren't complaining about it, I wanted to play the silent observer part, and Griff had always been inferior to anyone, too oppressed to raise his voice.

In the school, far from the overwhelming presence of the mafia at the orphanage we were fearsome and ill-famed, back at the institute we were cunning enough to hide our new profile and fish in troubled waters only in the background. Diving into illegal business was easier than any of us might have thought, you just have to know the right persons to deal with and right places to lurk around. Smuggling, stealing, hole and corner deals, and much later illegal street fights accompanied with set-up bets; anything we could come up with to get money. I don't think we were by far that picky.

_There's something wrong with me chemically  
Something wrong with me inherently  
The wrong mix in the wrong genes  
I reached the wrong ends by the wrong means  
_

I had a guilty conscious in the beginning. After every crime committed I was remorseful. But slowly with time it got faded, grew so small that it was easy to trample down. The guilt turned into anger; maybe I was angry at fate that it had nothing better in store for me, I was angry at my parents for abandoning me to be on my own, but mostly I was angry at the world for the rejection, for those looks I received in the street and the school, for those no-looks at the fence of the orphanage, at all those doors that started to get slammed at my face before giving me a chance. I tried to get a legal job not once, but my looks, the background I had, and the address of the orphanage I could provide made them turn their back on me. The orphanage had its own reputation, all right. I could not be in the same league with anyone, and I think prejudice was what wore me out eventually. It's something you cannot fight.

Then I just gave up. It was easier and more convenient to be exactly what they had believed me to be. The less they deemed me, the deeper I sank. I figure this was the time when my dubious obsession for self-destruction started its crusade. It wasn't anything conscious. By causing myself pain in any form, let it be a hangover or bruises after a foolish fistfight, I had the fake feeling of relief. Maybe I wanted to reach a constant state of oblivion or forge myself into an insensitive being; either way, I never managed to get anywhere.

I went down the easiest path: the path of revenge. It was a thing we had in common at the institute, the only thing we had in mind: taking everything from everyone for how they treated us, even from each other, from strangers, from girls. We couldn't avenge ourselves on runaway parents, on life and fate, so we did it on everyone coming by. And it felt justified every single day when they treated me like dust on their shoes.

Of course, I always came in very handy when they needed something they had trouble in getting it, illegal stuff all right. I delivered, they paid. They never recognized me the next day, not even with a bat of an eyelid; they all had a master degree in looking straight through people like me. First time it hurt like everything did, but then I got used to the way of it.

It was the same with girls. On hazy Saturday nights I was fine for a short fling, I guess it was some kind of a thrill for preps and daddy's girls to screw with someone far below them, someone beyond the borders of convention, someone you'd be disgusted with by daylight. I knew they'd used me, and so I'd taken everything I wanted with no moral boundaries. But I think in the end it was always me who felt more used. It was me who got hurt.

Those days I was having a hell of a headache. I hardly remember what was going on then: either I was drugged stupid by the painkillers or I was lying in the bed with eyes shut tight, fighting something that started forming inside me. Something foreign.

I was alone on my way back to the orphanage through an alleyway full of local bars and local drunks when a bunch of jocks from school spotted me.

"Hey, Alvers, we've just found your daddy," and they were howling with laughter at me and a drunken homeless on the sidewalk.

"Let's cross the street, this side stinks."

I turned back. This came from a girl from Literature, who when the other day I'd been ordered to switch place with her had put a tabloid on my chair before sitting down. I remembered how the whole class had been laughing.

"Tell me you're ready to fight!" a big bulk of muscle and high school jacket barked. "You know what the best is in this? We could do whatever we want to you without getting in trouble. Who'd believe you against us? No one cares what happens to someone like you. They'd even thank us. The likes of you should have been dumped in the dustbin behind the hospital on the very first day. Even your own parents didn't want you, why would anyone else? And instead, there's that huge house full of useless spongers, would-be thieves, killers and criminals. It should be burnt down to ashes. And thinking society even pays the heating and food and clothes. Why for?"

I got angry for he knew nothing about hunger, nothing about cold, nothing about living always many, many steps under welfare, no, not welfare, rather poverty. He knew nothing about not being cared about, and never been loved. He didn't seem to care it wasn't our fault either. But the worst was that there was a slight truth in his words and it made me disappointed and raged.

"You're just a bunch of hoods, and always will be. You're not qualifying for anything useful. Just like your parents."

Every muscle in my body tensed, ready to jump on them to beat the heck out of daddy's little boy who wouldn't survive a day at the orphanage, and got a sports car at his sweet sixteen party and had no idea how life was for us. The killing headache suddenly exploded, blinding me so much I was afraid my head would crack open like a nut. And just the minute I wanted to hurl myself on them despite they outnumbered me, the earth moved. It was so sudden, so unexpected that I fell on one knee. It was only one violent shake but they all landed in a heap. Just as suddenly as it came, it was over. I jumped on my feet, and took off running. Not because I was afraid they would beat me black and blue, not because I was afraid of another earthquake. But because of what it had evoked in me. I didn't get too far. Behind a dustbin I hunched over and threw up. Through the whirlwind of thoughts I sensed the days-long headache was gone, and it just made me more frightened. I knew something was terribly wrong; something that had been born and caged in me got loose. I wasn't horrified because Northbrook wasn't famous of earthquakes but because I felt it, in every bone and muscle in my body, in my veins and nerves I felt the seismic waves like they were a part of me, like they were reflecting my mood. They went through me, and I knew I was somehow responsible for its wake. I knew it came, because I, unbeknownst to me, was calling it.

I didn't know what was happening to me, I couldn't even decide if what I suspected was even possible. It looked like life was out for me. I was so freaked out that I didn't go back to the orphanage that night, and dropped out of school the next days because in my mind's eye I was transforming into a monster. I went into hiding and those hours and days went by in a haze.

With this strange mutation, another transformation started to proceed in me. The more I propelled into ruminations about the former, the more I became something I'd never wanted to: like my damn parents. I couldn't be reconciled to be a freak, a monster, something so non-human, that as a by-product of processing the shock I turned on the self-destroying program that would never seem to fully leave me again.

_It was the wrong plan  
In the wrong hands  
The wrong theory for the wrong man  
The wrong eyes on the wrong prize  
The wrong questions with the wrong replies_

I kept it to myself for quite a long time, going into hiding even from Griff and Pete. Whether I wanted to get used to the thought, or simply put the whole event down as a coincidence was hard to decide. Then one day I found an empty industrial lot and tried to will earth move again. I ended up with the mother of all headaches and the sickening certainty that I was abnormal and a genetic disaster from many aspects.

I was making experiments on this newborn ability anyways, commanding the earth and buildings move and collapse, trying its boundaries. I broke almost every bone in my hand. I eventually learnt how to use it, I knew my limits and was careful not to reflect back the waves again. I undoubtedly paid the price for the crash-course.

And then I made a little demonstration to my pals, and it happened to build another wall between me and the rest of the world, cutting me away from the last of those who were relatively close to me. I'd guessed they would be disgusted, or simply turn away from me on account of me being different and beyond comprehension. But it was something else. There was fear in their eyes, element and raw with a hint of admiration and envy, and it was like some kind of a drug to me. I wanted more and more, so I would forget how small I was. And how vulnerable. It was a cruel pleasure to be the dominant one for a change.

In a year I overgrew both of them physically. And with this secret weapon I possessed, we felt unstoppable. Somehow, with no effort I became the leader, taking over the power and leadership rights from Pete, making him hate me more than anyone. Fear seemed to be all-powerful. We committed things insolently, making a good use of my powers. It was a black era for Bakers: his car tyres getting pierced almost day-to-day, unleashed vandalism, scribbles on the back wall of the orphanage, his and neighbor cars getting "hired" for practicing driving. The district felt like during the Prohibition with all the stuff circulating in the streets. We were trying to keep a low profile, though; not that we could make it without many records in the police archives.

Despite being comrades or more precisely partners in crime with Pete and Griff, I'd never felt more alone than those times. It's not only that my unusual abilities made me feel outcast, I really _was_ one: though I was part of our gang, my pals seemed to become estranged. I couldn't talk about how frightened the possibility made me that this mutation might have been only stage one in a total transfiguration into an alien species, or maybe some kind of an unknown disease was raging inside me. They didn't feel the fear I felt, or the killing, blinding headaches, the sudden and uncontrollable lapse of power, the whole uncertainty and total lack of comprehension about what was going on with me. For long wakeful nights, dwelling in the depth of desperation, I thought I was dying. I tried to stay awake because I was afraid I would release another earthquake while sleeping, or I would wake up with an extra limb or green skin – I felt my body wasn't my own anymore. It was like I had to guard nitroglycerin in a soup can that could explode any minute by a little friction. Sleep deprivation almost killed me, resulting in a serious weight loss but the worst was that I was left alone with all these questions and worries. They wouldn't understand this. All they saw was me having a foreign and intimidating power they were lacking.

Slowly I managed to suppress the reservation and dread of this nonhuman ability. After all, I was half-raised in the streets, through many losses and out of necessity I'd learnt to produce as much benefit out of anything as possible. This was no exception. I realized how persuasive it could get, not to mention how useful it turned out in breaking and entering, or how distractive during illegal street fights, so gradually I learnt to use it more confidently. Over a year I'd started to think of it as a gift, strange as it was but useful nonetheless. I didn't bother anymore with being alone and outcast among the others, I had purposes that were more important than philosophical ruminations on unique abilities of unknown origin: I wanted to buy a car and get out of the town for good, and nothing else mattered.

That morning it didn't seem to be a fatal day. Not even when I decided to play truant for the umpteenth time, or damage public property. And not even when she fell on me from out of a closed locker. I realized it would have a fatal impact on my life only when she looked at me, when I saw the mixture of fear and disgust and despair and so many other indistinguishable emotions in those eyes, like once in the mirror, and somewhere deep inside I knew everything had changed in the fraction of a minute. I knew she got irreversibly imprinted in my mind. I tried to fight it, the pre-defined route life wanted me to walk down, and in a way I succeeded in it – I could divert my life from this fate but my heart, it wasn't able to follow it. Those times I forgot I had feelings. No doubt, it brought its own punishment later.

I'd not seen her before, though it was no wonder - I had eyes only for chicks who annoyed the heck out of me, and so I could fantasize about taking revenge on them. I remember staring at her, transfixed by the sheer sight of her and the fact that she was undoubtedly different too, ignoring the rush of warmth running over me that I finally found someone like me. That I wasn't alone in this world anymore. First I wasn't going to use her but suddenly the idea of the century hit me and everything paled in its importance: all at once the dream of me getting out of Northbrook got within reach. One last rip-off, and I would have enough money to leave to somewhere and start a new life where my past wouldn't pull me back. I was so naïve. I didn't understand it would be the same everywhere in the world.

I wanted to help her through the mess I'd fought before, I tried to be as fair as I could get within my own limits. In a crazy moment I even convinced myself we would make a terrific team, much better than what I was with Pete and Griff. She was so lost, so depending on me that I felt the immediate pull towards her but it came only secondary to my purposes. I wanted her to see this, to realize there was no one else in this world who could understand her better than me. I decided to be clear-cut honest to her because she was still in lying mode but my philosophy wasn't anything easy to cope with.

"We _are_ outsiders, there _is_ something wrong with us."

I remember her eyes, overshadowed by her hair and unconcealed fear of herself, trying to ride over the waves of confusion. I could see she wasn't ready to be an outsider. Everything about this girl was screaming about middle class comfort. Though she looked quite bookish, clumsy and socially on the outskirt at the school, I could tell she already understood with this new ability she became an exile, a refugee, completely excluded from society, and being unpopular at school would be nowhere near in comparison.

I can't imagine why I thought she would agree to any of this; she looked like daddy's good girl. I don't really know how it happened but it got out of control. I'd never been an expert in accepting losing things, and the thought of her walking out on me hurt more than I'd ever imagined. I didn't want to kill her, I think I wanted to kill that hurt and frustration roaring inside me. I don't think I could have lived with the consequences if it turned out otherwise. But ironical as it was, this was how I lost her. Bakers turned out to be right just once again. If in nothing else, I was an expert in spoiling every good thing around me.

Later when I saw she was safe and sound and got obviously shipped away somewhere, I was sure we wouldn't meet again. Life, however, had a strange sense of humor.

_I was marching to the wrong drum  
With the wrong scum  
Pissing out the wrong energy_

I could leave Northbrook eventually though under different circumstances but this fact on itself made my day. Good riddance. I didn't even say goodbye to anyone, I left my foster home with the shut of the door, all my belongings in a duffle bag, and never tried to contact Pete or Griff either. It was the best this way. I had no attachment whatsoever to anything in that town, so why feigning it meant more? Everything about that place reminded me of a future I might have inherited with DNA. Failure was written all over the buildings, streets, school lockers and pharmacy walls.

Bayville was a clean slate. I got a roof above my head, more than occasional meals, an own room and as much freedom as possible. I wasn't unique anymore, but still special which made me be more comfortable with my powers. If this new life had its downside it was outweighed by those I'd gained. Yeah, I had to wear some ridiculous space cowboy costume, was continuously ordered about by Mystique, and had to tolerate the bunch of morons I got as teammates but nothing is for free. At least, I achieved the title of unofficial leader in our disgraceful little team, and it was satisfactory enough to cease every rebellious thought in me.

It was an unlikely alliance: Fat dude, Stinky kid, Sissy boy, Touchy girl and Boss Lady - I felt like in some kind of a freak show, in a ridiculous circus with monkeys, costumes and gnomes all around the place. Sometimes I don't think we were any better than that. And compared to the goody-two-shoes perfect X-men with the flashy cars and all that gizmo, we looked like a mockery of them. They were everything we weren't and never could be, but most importantly I thought we never even wanted to be.

It was a do-as-told duty, no complexity whatsoever. I never asked questions, and certainly didn't try to judge motivations and reasons, moral boundaries, if had any, faded out in the lack of responsibility. I didn't care about any of that, it wasn't my business. If I could release a little extra energy and anger I had been continuously having built inside ever since my early years, it was more than I could bother with. If I had to attack the X-geeks, I was more than happy to do so. If I was ordered to do something that didn't look quite legal, the earth erupted with no hesitation. Neither Mystique, nor Magneto appeared to tolerate disobedience anyway. Everything was simple. Fighting for something I mostly knew next to nothing about; being a soldier in someone else's war; keeping my thoughts to myself if I happened to have any on my own. Bending myself in directions others wanted me to bend. So easy to fall for it.

It might have been a deal with the devil, but it was a clever one. A foul game where I didn't even realize I'd lost the only thing I'd ever had: my own will.

_Using all the wrong lines  
And the wrong signs  
With the wrong intensity  
_

It happened right on the third school day. Rounding a corner had never had such an effect on me. I hadn't been prepared for seeing her again, especially not there. Especially not in the opposing team. We had the exact same reaction, eyes wide, mouth agape, and everything came rushing in, onslaught of memories flooded us. My heart leapt, I couldn't deny it, like of a child who finally received back its favorite toy but the sensation died when she showed how cold she'd learnt to be. She managed to compress everything, animosity, hatred, disgust and disappointment in one single glance that seemed to crash every bone in my chest, squeezing the air out of my lungs. She said it was something _I was_ granted to see. It was something _I helped_ to come into the world. I'd had enough opportunity to get used to be receiving the cold shoulder but from her it was different. It made me hate myself.

This wasn't the only thing that changed about her. I was watching her obsessively during every lunch at school, and every other time she happened to be around, and for quite a long time I couldn't grasp the difference. It was like she turned into a woman in the two weeks I hadn't met her; or precisely, something between a child and a woman. Maybe it was self-confidence that hadn't existed before, maybe it was the fact she had friends, she gained success in various things in her new life, I don't know. I wasn't sure which version I liked more. I missed the trust she'd had towards me, I missed the innocence she'd been having in her eyes, the funny clumsiness and the naïve smile. On the other hand, this new version was thrilling and enthralling, making my skin tingle with a mere glance but I fought it just as fiercely as I fought her, because there was no way in hell I would let her know how I had managed to hurt myself along with her.

For some reason I thought I could still have a faint dominance of her, maybe I wanted to convince myself we still had that bond between us, but I was so wrong. I wrapped my true intentions in mocking, smug insults to get the upper hand – I was so confident in my skin, so arrogant that the only way from there was downward. I couldn't make her fear me again, and she made sure I understood it by kicking my ass fairly well when we had a clash with the X-geeks over some trans-dimensional gadget. Seeing my surprise, she snarled at me as if she was the defeated one, asking if I thought she was still that clumsy little girl. I couldn't help but answer honestly.

"I hoped so. She was lovely. I liked her better."

I'd never seen her so angry, so disappointed. "Because she depended on you, and you could easily use her for your own twisted purposes?"

My voice was so low that I almost doubted she heard me. "No, because for a moment there was no one else in this world who could understand better what we've been through than us."

"If it's over it's your fault. You screwed it up!" she yelled, outraged, almost crying maybe because I was right. And she was right too. And because it hurt more than it should have. "And for the record, I'm still lovely… only not to you. Never again to you."

And with that the all too familiar word 'failure' swam into picture yet again.

From then on it became a scenario I was more than willing to stick to because it gave the fake belief that she didn't mean anything to me. It was a convenient daily routine, us fighting at every step all over the place; convenient because there was no possibility there to raise questions I didn't want to answer.

_I was on the wrong page of the wrong book  
With the wrong rendition of the wrong look  
With the wrong moon, every wrong night  
With the wrong tune playing till it sounded right yeah_

I was back to square one. Northbrook, Bayville, didn't quite make any difference. It was walking down the very line I wanted to avoid. I was a thug, no more, no less, and a failure even at that.

I was leading a deceptive life. If I did my job well, everything I had done seemed justified. I never even realized what a flawless pawn I was in reality. And being that, how replaceable, not more than a collateral damage at the bottom of the list if it came to that. Deep inside, I knew I let myself be used again, and it disgusted me. I was squirming in an invisible grip, continuously falling out of the simple role I had to play, lapsing into occasional and unintentional acts that questioned my state of mind in my teammates' eyes, hell, even in my own eyes, sometimes casting doubt on my loyalty to them, but mostly it pushed me into futile moralization. I felt out of place but didn't know where it went wrong. I felt like I was moving in orbital rotation and had no clue how, and, mostly, no power to push myself off of that route. Or for that matter, which direction I wanted to be pushed.

I lived in an in-between world, didn't belong to either side, being too bad for the goods and too sensible for the bad guys. I just _seemed_ to be tough but I couldn't cheat myself. I was made of soft, sensible material, no matter how much I hated this thought, and that material hurt, bled and felt cold, and the thin, cracked shield that surrounded me wasn't enough to protect me. I was so pathetic about letting down all my walls by a nice word from anyone, by the slightest friendlier touch. I always stepped into the same trap. Everything got to me too easily. I couldn't figure out why I was bothering with my lunatic teammates, for that matter, why I couldn't just leave them for good, without the feeling I had betrayed them… without feelings, to begin with. If I had been a true villain, the kind of Mystique, I really wouldn't have had any. It was, though, only an additional defeat on my shelf full of glaring fiascos of my life.

I failed in everything it was possible to fail in. I was a fucked up villain, on the perfect way to inherited depravity, a dropout, I lost dignity, freedom and all sorts of fights, because fighting myself was a losing game in every aspect. Fighting my own heart was nothing I could win at. And also fighting _her_ meant exactly this, I was only too blind to see it, and too stubborn to admit it.

I wished I could be just a dumbhead, dribbling beast as Sabertooth or fickle like Pietro who didn't care for anyone but himself. They all had an easier life, every event was like water off a duck's back to them, didn't have a guilty conscience when they stepped over someone, never had that sickening feeling when they disabused someone of their opinion of them because they never ever wanted to charm people, not if it didn't serve their purposes. I was different, ridiculously pathetic in my yearning for appreciation, for the warmth of the thought of someone minding me. Thus I was continuously driving myself into situations that would hurt me in the end, the moron I was. Why I had to always torture myself with caring for someone and then being dumped like a piece of junk or slapped across the face painfully was beyond me. Why, if never in my life had I anyone care for me? I had to accept the fact that I must have really been that worthless scum that no one ever wanted to care if I lived or died, not even my damned parents. You can't deny facts.

Self-deception, though, had always proved to be a perfect mean for survival. I convinced myself it wasn't hard to stop thinking that there was a place, there was someone on earth for me, too. It wasn't hard either to wipe every reluctance, every own thought out of my head and play the puppet that anyone could toss around. There was nothing wrong with that, someone had to play that part too. Go with the convenient, let the tide take you. I'd had enough rebellious moments in my life to last for another hundred years, and I thought it was getting tiring. At least, this way I belonged somewhere, lining up with other puppets in war with a half-dubious purpose I could feel a bit related to, easier than to the X-geeks' holy, self-righteous dreams of world peace. Fear was something I was willing to induce anytime, and it always had a hint of vengeance in its wake. And vengeance was good, as was anger. Releasing them made me feel light for a few moments, invulnerable, free and whole. It didn't matter how self-destructive it could get; it was just a minor liability in the game. There was nothing more someone without a tiny chance of gaining anything in life could wish for.

And that's what I was.

_Wrong_

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**Author:** As always, reviews are much appreciated. Thanks for reading!


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